My dryad hath her hiding place Among ten thousand trees. She flies to cover At step of a lover, And where to find her lovely face Only the woodland bees Ever discover, Bringing her honey From meadows sunny, Cowslip and clover.
Vainly on beech and oak I knock Amid the silent boughs; Then hear her laughter, The moment after, Making of me her laughing-stock Within her hidden house.
The young moon with her wand of pearl Taps on her hidden door, Bids her beauty flower In that woodland bower, All white like a mortal girl, With moonshine hallowed o'er.
Yet were there thrice ten thousand trees To hide her face from me, Not all her fleeing Should 'scape my seeing, Nor all her ambushed sorceries Secure concealment be For her bright being.
Yea! should she by the laddered pine Steal to the stars on high, Her fairy whiteness, Hidden in brightness, Her hiding-place would so out-shine The constellated sky, She could not 'scape the eye Of my pursuing, Nor her fawn-foot lightness Out-speed my wooing.
May is back, and You and I Are at the stream again-- The leaves are out, And all about The building birds begin To make a merry din: May is back, and You and I Are at the dream again.
May is back, and You and I Lie in the grass again,-- The butterfly Flits painted by, The bee brings sudden fear, Like people talking near; May is back, and You and I Are lad and lass again.
May is back, and You and I Are heart to heart again,-- In God's green house We make our vows Of summer love that stays Faithful through winter days; May is back, and You and I Shall never part again.
Let's go to market in the moon, And buy some dreams together, Slip on your little silver shoon, And don your cap and feather; No need of petticoat or stocking-- No one up there will think it shocking.
Across the dew, Just I and you, With all the world behind us; Away from rules, Away from fools, Where nobody can find us.
Your birthday, sweetheart, is my birthday too, For, had you not been born, I who began to live beholding you Up early as the morn, That day in June beside the rose-hung stream, Had never lived at all-- We stood, do you remember? in a dream There by the water-fall.
You were as still as all the other flowers Under the morning's spell; Sudden two lives were one, and all things "ours"-- How we can never tell. Surely it had been fated long ago-- What else, dear, could we think? It seemed that we had stood for ever so, There by the river's brink.